Historical Events on Saturday, 15th November

15/11/2022

The world population reached eight billion.

In world demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently alive. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded 8 billion (8,000,000,000) on November 15, 2022. It took around 300,000 years of human prehistory and history for the human population to reach a billion and only 218 more years from there to reach 8 billion. As of 2026, the world population is approximately 8.3 billion.

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15/11/2020

Lewis Hamilton wins the Turkish Grand Prix and secures his seventh drivers' title, equalling the all-time record held by Michael Schumacher.

Sir Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton is a British racing driver who competes in Formula One for Ferrari. Hamilton has won a joint-record seven Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles—tied with Michael Schumacher—and holds the records for most wins (105), pole positions (104), and podium finishes (203), among others.

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15/11/2017

A flood a few miles outside of Athens results in the death of 25 people.

During the morning hours of 15 November 2017, after heavy rainfall caused because of the barometric low Eurydice and the Cyclone Numa, flooding occurred in Western Attica and mainly in Mandra, Nea Peramos, Magoula and Elefsina. The floods killed 24 people and caused severe damage. This is the third largest flood in Attica based on the number of dead.

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15/11/2016

Hong Kong's High Court bans elected politicians Yau Wai-ching and Baggio Leung from the city's Parliament.

The High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is a part of the Judiciary of Hong Kong, consisting of the upper Court of Appeal and the lower Court of First Instance. It also deals with criminal and civil cases which have risen beyond the lower courts.

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15/11/2012

Xi Jinping becomes General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and a new seven-member Politburo Standing Committee is inaugurated.

Xi Jinping is a Chinese statesman and politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Party Central Military Commission (CMC) since 2012, and the president of China and chairman of the State Central Military Commission since 2013. Xi has been the leader of the fifth generation of Chinese leadership since 2012.

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15/11/2010

A fire in a high-rise apartment building in Shanghai, China kills 58 people.

The 2010 Shanghai fire was a fire on 15 November 2010 that destroyed a 28-story high-rise apartment building in the heart of Shanghai, China, killing at least 58 people and injuring more than 70 others. Most of the residents were retired state school senior educators. It is remembered as an iconic high-rise fire in China in the 2010s.

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15/11/2007

Cyclone Sidr hits Bangladesh, killing an estimated 5,000 people and destroying parts of the world's largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans.

Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm Sidr was an extremely deadly and devastating tropical cyclone that resulted in one of the worst natural disasters in Bangladesh. The fourth named and the deadliest storm of the 2007 North Indian Ocean cyclone season, Sidr formed in the central Bay of Bengal, and quickly strengthened to reach peak 1-minute sustained winds of 260 km/h (160 mph), making it a Category-5 equivalent tropical cyclone on the Saffir–Simpson scale. The storm eventually made landfall in Bangladesh on November 15, 2007, leading to large-scale evacuations. At least 3,447 deaths have been blamed on the storm, with some estimates reaching 15,000.

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15/11/2006

Al Jazeera English launches worldwide.

Al Jazeera English, often known as Al Jazeera, is a 24-hour English-language news channel operating under Al Jazeera Media Network, which is partially funded by the government of Qatar. Al Jazeera introduced an English-language division in 2006. It is the first global English-language news channel to be headquartered in the Middle East.

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15/11/2003

The first day of the 2003 Istanbul bombings, in which two car bombs, targeting two synagogues, explode, kill 25 people and wound 300 more.

The 2003 Istanbul bombings were a series of suicide attacks carried out with trucks fitted with bombs detonated at four locations in Istanbul, Turkey, on 15 and 20 November 2003.

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15/11/2002

Hu Jintao becomes General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and a new nine-member Politburo Standing Committee is inaugurated.

Hu Jintao is a Chinese retired politician who served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 2002 to 2012, president of China from 2003 to 2013, and chairman of the Central Military Commission from 2004 to 2012. He was a member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee, China's top decision-making body, from 1992 to 2012, and served as the paramount leader of China from 2002 to 2012.

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15/11/2001

Microsoft launches the Xbox game console in North America.

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology company founded in 1975 and headquartered in Redmond, Washington. The company became influential in the rise of personal computers through software like Windows and has since expanded to Internet services, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, video gaming, and other fields. A Big Tech company, Microsoft is the largest software company by revenue, one of the most valuable public companies, and one of the most valuable brands globally.

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15/11/2000

A chartered Antonov An-24 crashes after takeoff from Luanda, Angola, killing more than 40 people.

The Antonov An-24 is a 44-seat twin turboprop regional airliner designed in 1957 in the Soviet Union by the Antonov Design Bureau. Later variants saw other uses, such as military transport and aerial cartography. The aircraft was manufactured by the Kyiv, Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude Aviation Factories. It is still license-produced in China as the Xi'an Y-7.

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Jharkhand officially becomes the 28th state of India, formed from eighteen districts of southern Bihar.

Jharkhand is a landlocked state in eastern India. The state shares borders with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It is the 15th largest state by area, and the 14th largest by population. Hindi is the official language of the state. The city of Ranchi is its capital, and Dumka its sub-capital. The state is known for its waterfalls, hills and holy places; Baidyanath Dham, Parasnath, Dewri and Rajrappa are major religious sites. As per 2011 census, Jharkhand is primarily rural, with about 24% of its population living in cities.

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15/11/1994

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake hits the central Philippine island of Mindoro, killing 78 people, injuring 430 and triggering a tsunami up to 8.5 m (28 ft) high.

The 1994 Mindoro earthquake occurred at 03:15:30 PST on November 15 near Mindoro, Philippines. It had a moment magnitude of 7.1 and a maximum Rossi–Forel of VII. It is associated with a 35-kilometer-long (22 mi) ground rupture, called the Aglubang River fault. Seventy eight people were reported dead, and 7,566 houses were damaged. The earthquake generated a tsunami and landslides on the Verde Island.

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15/11/1990

The Communist People's Republic of Bulgaria is disestablished and a new republican government is instituted.

The People's Republic of Bulgaria was the Bulgarian state that existed from 1946 to 1990, ruled by the Bulgarian Communist Party together with its coalition partner, the Bulgarian Agrarian People's Union. Bulgaria was also part of Comecon as well as a member of the Warsaw Pact. The Bulgarian resistance movement during World War II deposed the Tsardom of Bulgaria administration in the Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944 which ended the country's alliance with the Axis powers and led to the People's Republic in 1946.

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Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on STS-38, a classified mission for the Department of Defense.

Space Shuttle Atlantis is a retired Space Shuttle orbiter vehicle which belongs to NASA, the spaceflight and space exploration agency of the United States. Atlantis was manufactured by the Rockwell International company in Southern California and was delivered to the Kennedy Space Center in Eastern Florida in April 1985. Atlantis is the fourth operational and the second-to-last Space Shuttle built. Its maiden flight was STS-51-J made from October 3 to 7, 1985.

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15/11/1988

In the Soviet Union, the uncrewed Shuttle Buran makes its only space flight.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), also known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until its dissolution in 1991. It was the world's third-most populous country, largest by area, and bordered twelve countries. A diverse multinational state, it was organized as a federal union of national republics, the largest and most populous being the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. In practice, its government and economy were highly centralized. As a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, it was the flagship communist state. Its capital and largest city was Moscow.

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Israeli–Palestinian conflict: An independent State of Palestine is proclaimed by the Palestinian National Council.

Israel and the Palestinians are engaged in an ongoing military and political conflict about land and self-determination within the former territory of Mandatory Palestine. Key aspects of the conflict have included Palestinian refugees, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the status of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, borders, security, water rights, the permit regime in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian freedom of movement, and the Palestinian right of return.

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The first Fairtrade label, Max Havelaar, is launched in the Netherlands.

A fair trade certification is a product certification within the market-based movement of fair trade. The most widely used fair trade certification is FLO International's, the International Fairtrade Certification Mark, used in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Fair Trade Certified Mark is the North American equivalent of the International Fairtrade Certification Mark. As of January 2011, there were more than 1,000 companies certified by FLO International's certification and a further 1,000 or so certified by other ethical and fairtrade certification schemes around the world.

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15/11/1987

In Brașov, Romania, workers rebel against the communist regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu.

Brașov is a city in Transylvania, Romania and the county seat of Brașov County.

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Continental Airlines Flight 1713 crashes during takeoff from Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Colorado, killing 25.

Continental Airlines Flight 1713 was a commercial airline flight that crashed while taking off in a snowstorm from Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Colorado, United States, on November 15, 1987. The Douglas DC-9 airliner, operated by Continental Airlines, was making a scheduled flight to Boise, Idaho. Twenty-five passengers and three crew members died in the crash.

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15/11/1985

A research assistant is injured when a package from the Unabomber addressed to a University of Michigan professor explodes.

Theodore John Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, was an American mathematician and domestic terrorist. A mathematics prodigy, he abandoned his academic career in 1969 to pursue a reclusive primitive lifestyle and lone wolf terrorism campaign.

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The Anglo-Irish Agreement is signed at Hillsborough Castle by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.

The Anglo-Irish Agreement was a 1985 treaty between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland which aimed to help bring an end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The treaty gave the Irish government an advisory role in Northern Ireland's government while confirming that there would be no change in the constitutional position of Northern Ireland unless a majority of its citizens agreed to join the Republic. It also set out conditions for the establishment of a devolved consensus government in the region.

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15/11/1983

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus declares independence; it is only recognized by Turkey.

Northern Cyprus, officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), is a de facto state comprising the northern third of the island of Cyprus. It is recognised only by Turkey, with the international community considering it territory of the Republic of Cyprus under Turkish military occupation. It extends from Cape Apostolos Andreas in the northeast to Morphou Bay in the northwest, with Cape Kormakitis at its westernmost point and the Kokkina exclave west of the mainland. A buffer zone controlled by the UN forms a barrier between both sides of the island and runs through Nicosia, the island's largest city and the capital of both sides.

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15/11/1979

A package from Unabomber Ted Kaczynski begins smoking in the cargo hold of a flight from Chicago to Washington, D.C., forcing the plane to make an emergency landing.

Theodore John Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, was an American mathematician and domestic terrorist. A mathematics prodigy, he abandoned his academic career in 1969 to pursue a reclusive primitive lifestyle and lone wolf terrorism campaign.

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15/11/1978

A chartered Douglas DC-8 crashes near Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing 183.

The Douglas DC-8 is an early long-range narrow-body jetliner designed and produced by the American Douglas Aircraft Company. Work began in 1952 toward the United States Air Force's (USAF) requirement for a jet-powered aerial refueling tanker. After losing the USAF's tanker competition to the rival Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker in May 1954, Douglas announced in June 1955 its derived jetliner project marketed to civil operators. In October 1955, Pan Am made the first order along with the competing Boeing 707, and many other airlines soon followed. The first DC-8 was rolled out in Long Beach Airport on April 9, 1958, and flew for the first time on May 30. Following Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification in August 1959, the DC-8 entered service with Delta Air Lines on September 18.

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15/11/1976

René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois take power to become the first Quebec government of the 20th century clearly in favor of independence.

René Lévesque was a Canadian politician and journalist who served as the 23rd premier of Quebec from 1976 to 1985. He was the first Québécois political leader since Confederation to seek, through a referendum, a mandate to negotiate the political independence of Quebec. Starting his career as a reporter, and radio and television host, he later became known for his eminent role in Quebec's nationalization of hydro-electric companies and as an ardent defender of Quebec sovereignty. He was the founder of the Parti Québécois, and before that, a Liberal minister in the Lesage government from 1960 to 1966.

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15/11/1971

Intel releases the world's first commercial single-chip microprocessor, the 4004.

Intel Corporation is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It designs, manufactures, and sells computer components such as central processing units (CPUs) and related products for business and consumer markets. Intel was the world's third-largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue in 2024 and has been included in the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue since 2007. It was one of the first companies listed on Nasdaq.

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15/11/1969

Cold War: The Soviet submarine K-19 collides with the American submarine USS Gato in the Barents Sea.

The Cold War was a period of international geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc. It began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The term cold war is used because there was no direct fighting between the two superpowers, though each supported opposing sides in regional conflicts known as proxy wars. In addition to the struggle for ideological and economic influence and an arms race in both conventional and nuclear weapons, the Cold War was expressed through technological rivalries such as the Space Race, espionage, propaganda campaigns, embargoes, and sports diplomacy.

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Vietnam War: In Washington, D.C., 250,000–500,000 protesters staged a peaceful demonstration against the war, including a symbolic "March Against Death".

The Vietnam War was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam and their allies. North Vietnam was supported by the Soviet Union and China, while South Vietnam was supported by the United States and other anti-communist nations. The conflict was the second of the Indochina wars and a proxy war of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and US. The Vietnam War was one of the postcolonial wars of national liberation, a theater in the Cold War, and a civil war, with civil warfare a defining feature from the outset. Direct US military involvement escalated from 1965 until US forces were withdrawn in 1973. The fighting spilled into the Laotian and Cambodian civil wars, which ended with all three countries becoming communist in 1975.

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15/11/1968

The Cleveland Transit System becomes the first transit system in the western hemisphere to provide direct rapid transit service from a city's downtown to its major airport.

The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority is the public transit agency for Cleveland and the surrounding suburbs of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. RTA is the largest transit agency in Ohio, with a ridership of 24,519,200, or about 83,500 per weekday as of the fourth quarter of 2025.

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15/11/1967

The only fatality of the North American X-15 program occurs during the 191st flight when Air Force test pilot Michael J. Adams loses control of his aircraft which is destroyed mid-air over the Mojave Desert.

The North American X-15 is a hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft formerly operated by the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the X-plane series of experimental aircraft. The X-15 set speed and altitude records in the 1960s, crossing the edge of outer space and returning with valuable data used in aircraft and spacecraft design. The X-15's highest speed, 4,520 miles per hour, was achieved on 3 October 1967, when William J. Knight flew at Mach 6.7 at an altitude of 102,100 feet (31,120 m), or 19.34 miles. This set the official world record for the highest speed ever recorded by a crewed, powered aircraft and remains unbroken.

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15/11/1966

Project Gemini: Gemini 12 completes the program's final mission, when it splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean.

Project Gemini was the second United States human spaceflight program to fly. It was conducted after the first American crewed space program, Project Mercury, while the Apollo program was still in early development. Gemini was conceived in 1961 and concluded in 1966. The Gemini spacecraft carried a two-astronaut crew. Ten Gemini crews and 16 individual astronauts flew low Earth orbit (LEO) missions during 1965 and 1966.

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15/11/1965

Craig Breedlove sets a land speed record of 600.601 mph (966.574 km/h) in his car, the Spirit of America, at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

Norman Craig Breedlove Sr. was an American professional race car driver and a five-time world land speed record holder. He was the first person in history to reach 500 mph (800 km/h), and 600 mph (970 km/h), using several turbojet-powered vehicles, all named Spirit of America.

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15/11/1959

Four members of the Clutter family are murdered near Holcomb, Kansas, by Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, a crime later detailed by Truman Capote in his 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood.

In the early morning of November 15, 1959, four members of the Clutter family – Herb Clutter, his wife, Bonnie, and their teenage children Nancy and Kenyon – were murdered in their rural home just outside the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas. Two ex-convicts, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, were found guilty of the murders and sentenced to death. They were both executed on April 14, 1965. The murders were detailed by Truman Capote in his 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood.

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15/11/1957

Short Solent 3 crashes near Chessell.

The 1957 Aquila Airways Solent crash occurred on the Isle of Wight in England on 15 November. With 45 lives lost, at the time it was the second worst aircraft accident within the United Kingdom, then at the time the worst ever air disaster to occur on English soil until it was superseded by the Stockport air disaster, in 1967.

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15/11/1955

The first part of the Saint Petersburg Metro is opened.

The Saint Petersburg Metro is a rapid transit system in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Construction began in early 1941, but was put on hold due to World War II and the subsequent Siege of Leningrad, during which the constructed stations were used as bomb shelters. It was finally opened on 15 November 1955.

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15/11/1951

Nikos Beloyannis, along with 11 comrades, is sentenced to death for attempting to reestablish the Communist Party of Greece.

Nikos Beloyannis was a Greek resistance leader and leading cadre of the Greek Communist Party.

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15/11/1943

The Holocaust: German SS leader Heinrich Himmler orders that Gypsies are to be put "on the same level as Jews and placed in concentration camps".

The Holocaust, known in Hebrew as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered around six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, approximately two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were committed primarily through mass shootings across Eastern Europe and poison gas chambers in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chełmno and Majdanek death camps in occupied Poland. Concurrent Nazi persecutions killed millions of other non-Jewish civilians and prisoners of war (POWs); the term Holocaust is sometimes used to include the murder and persecution of non-Jewish groups, such as the Romani and Soviet POWs.

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15/11/1942

World War II: The Battle of Guadalcanal ends in a decisive Allied victory.

World War II, or the Second World War, was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated. Tanks and aircraft played major roles, the latter enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the only nuclear weapons used in war. World War II was the deadliest conflict in history, causing the death of 60 to 75 million people. Millions died as a result of massacres, starvation, disease, and genocides including the Holocaust. After the Allied victory, Germany, Austria, Japan, and Korea were occupied, and German and Japanese leaders were tried for war crimes.

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15/11/1938

Nazi Germany bans Jewish children from public schools in the aftermath of Kristallnacht.

Nazi Germany, officially the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", referred to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and the German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945, after 12 years, when the Allies defeated Germany and entered the capital, Berlin, ending World War II in Europe.

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15/11/1933

Thailand holds its first election.

Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand, and formerly known as Siam until 1939, is a country located in Mainland Southeast Asia. It shares land borders with Myanmar to the west and northwest, Laos to the east and northeast, Cambodia to the southeast, and Malaysia to the south. Its maritime boundaries include the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea, as well as maritime borders with Vietnam, Indonesia, and India. Thailand has a population of nearly 66 million people and covers an area of approximately 513,115 km2. The country's capital and largest city is Bangkok.

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15/11/1928

The RNLI lifeboat Mary Stanford capsizes in Rye Harbour with the loss of the entire 17-man crew.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is the largest of the lifeboat services operating around the coasts of the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man, as well as on some inland waterways.

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15/11/1922

At least 300 are massacred during a general strike in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

The 1922 Guayaquil general strike was a three-day general work stoppage in the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, which lasted from 13 to 15 November of that year. The strike began with trolley, electric company and other public utility workers who were inspired by a successful strike by railroad workers in nearby Durán. Workers made demands such as pay increases, shorter hours, safer working conditions, and government control of foreign currency exchange rates.

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15/11/1920

The first assembly of the League of Nations is held in Geneva, Switzerland.

The League of Nations was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. The main organisation ceased operations on 18 April 1946 when many of its components were relocated into the new United Nations (UN) which was created in the aftermath of the Second World War. The League of Nations was the precursor organisation to the United Nations.

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The Free City of Danzig is established.

The Free City of Danzig was a city-state under the protection and oversight of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig and nearly 200 other small localities in the surrounding areas. The Country was established on 15 November 1920, per the terms of Article 100 of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, following the end of World War I.

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15/11/1917

Eduskunta declares itself the supreme state power of Finland, prompting its declaration of independence and secession from Russia.

The Parliament of Finland is the unicameral and supreme legislature of Finland, founded on 9 May 1906. In accordance with the Constitution of Finland, sovereignty belongs to the people, and that power is vested in the Parliament. The Parliament consists of 200 members, 199 of whom are elected every four years from 13 multi-member districts electing 6 to 37 members using the proportional D'Hondt method. In addition, there is one member from Åland.

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15/11/1899

Second Boer War: Battle of Chieveley, a British armored train is ambushed and partially derailed. British lose the battle, with 80 soldiers captured, along with war correspondent Winston Churchill.

The Second Boer War, also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the Boer republics over Britain's influence in Southern Africa.

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15/11/1889

Brazil is declared a republic by Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca as Emperor Pedro II is deposed in a military coup.

Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is also the world's fifth-largest country by area and the seventh-largest by population, with over 213 million people. Brazil is a federation composed of 26 states and a Federal District, which hosts the capital, Brasília. Its most populous city is São Paulo, followed by Rio de Janeiro. Brazil has the most Portuguese speakers in the world and is the only country in the Americas where Portuguese is an official language.

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15/11/1884

The Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 met on 15 November 1884, and after an adjournment concluded on 26 February 1885, with the signature of a General Act, regulating the European colonisation and trade in Africa during the New Imperialism period.

The Berlin Conference of 1884–1885 was a meeting of colonial powers that concluded with the signing of the General Act of Berlin, an agreement regulating European colonisation and trade in Africa during the New Imperialism period. The conference of fourteen countries was organised by Otto von Bismarck, the first chancellor of Germany, at the request of Leopold II of Belgium at a building on Berlin’s central Wilhelmstrasse. It met on 15 November 1884 and, after an adjournment, concluded on 26 February 1885 with the signing of the General Act. During the conference, attendees also discussed other related issues and agreed on a common framework for the recognition of European ''effective occupation'' of African coastal territory elsewhere on the continent. After the conference, European claims on African territory increased with international legal recognition, having a newly established legal framework for establishing colonies.

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15/11/1864

American Civil War: Union General William Tecumseh Sherman begins his March to the Sea through Georgia towards the city of Savannah.

The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy, which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded from the Union to preserve slavery in the United States, which they saw as threatened because of the election of Abraham Lincoln and the growing abolitionist movement in the North. The war lasted a little over four years, ending with Union victory, the dissolution of the Confederacy and the abolition of slavery, freeing four million African Americans.

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15/11/1849

Boilers of the steamboat Louisiana explode as she pulls back from the dock in New Orleans, killing more than 150 people.

A boiler explosion is a catastrophic failure of a boiler.

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15/11/1842

A slave revolt in the Cherokee Nation commences.

The 1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation was the largest escape of a group of slaves to occur in the Cherokee Nation, in what was then Indian Territory. The slave revolt started on November 15, 1842, when a group of 20 African Americans enslaved by the Cherokee escaped and tried to reach Mexico, where slavery had been abolished in 1829. Along their way south, they were joined by 15 slaves escaping from the Creek Nation in Indian Territory.

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15/11/1806

Pike Expedition: Lieutenant Zebulon Pike spots a mountain peak while near the Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It is later named Pikes Peak in his honor.

The Pike Expedition was a military party sent out by President Thomas Jefferson and authorized by the United States government to explore the south and west of the recent Louisiana Purchase. It was led by United States Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, Jr. who was promoted to captain during the trip. It was the first official American effort to explore the western Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains in present-day Colorado. Pike contacted several Native American tribes during his travels and informed them that the U.S. now claimed their territory. The expedition documented the United States' discovery of Tava which was later renamed Pikes Peak in honor of Pike.

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15/11/1777

American Revolutionary War: After 16 months of debate the Continental Congress approves the Articles of Confederation.

The American Revolutionary War, also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war's outcome seemed uncertain for most of the war, but Washington and the Continental Army's decisive victory in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781 led King George III and the Kingdom of Great Britain to negotiate an end to the war. In 1783, in the Treaty of Paris, the British monarchy acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, leading to the establishment of the United States as an independent and sovereign nation.

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15/11/1760

The secondly-built Castellania in Valletta is officially inaugurated with the blessing of the interior Chapel of Sorrows.

The Castellania, also known as the Castellania Palace, is a former courthouse and prison in Valletta, Malta that currently houses the country's health ministry. It was built by the Order of St. John between 1757 and 1760, on the site of an earlier courthouse which had been built in 1572.

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15/11/1705

Rákóczi's War of Independence: The Habsburg Empire and Denmark win a military victory over the Kurucs from Hungary in the Battle of Zsibó.

Rákóczi's War of Independence (1703–1711) was one of the most significant attempts to topple the rule of the Habsburgs over Hungary. The war was conducted by a group of noblemen and wealthy and high-ranking progressives and was led by Francis II Rákóczi; resigned soldiers and peasants also fought alongside the noblemen. The insurrection was unsuccessful, ending with the Treaty of Szatmár, but the Hungarian nobility managed to satisfy some of the Hungarian interests. The treaty granted political and religious amnesty to the kurucs, so despite the defeat, the war of independence prevented Hungary's full integration into the Habsburg Empire, and Hungary's feudal constitution was preserved.

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15/11/1533

Francisco Pizarro arrives in Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire.

Francisco Pizarro was a Spanish conquistador, best known for his expeditions that led to the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire.

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15/11/1532

Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire: Commanded by Francisco Pizarro, Spanish conquistadors under Hernando de Soto meet Incan Emperor Atahualpa for the first time outside Cajamarca, arranging for a meeting in the city plaza the following day.

The Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, also known as the Conquest of Peru, was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. After years of preliminary exploration and military skirmishes, 168 Spanish soldiers under conquistador Francisco Pizarro, along with his brothers in arms and their indigenous allies, captured the last Sapa Inca, Atahualpa, at the Battle of Cajamarca in 1532. It was the first step in a long campaign that took decades of fighting but ended in Spanish victory in 1572 and colonization of the region as the Viceroyalty of Peru. The conquest of the Inca Empire, led to spin-off campaigns into present-day Chile and Colombia, as well as expeditions to the Amazon Basin and surrounding rainforest.

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15/11/1315

Growth of the Old Swiss Confederacy: The Schweizer Eidgenossenschaft ambushes the army of Leopold I in the Battle of Morgarten.

The Old Swiss Confederacy began as a late medieval alliance between the communities of the valleys in the Central Alps, at the time part of the Holy Roman Empire, to facilitate the management of common interests such as free trade and to ensure the peace along the important trade routes through the mountains. The Hohenstaufen emperors had granted these valleys reichsfrei status in the early 13th century. As reichsfrei regions, the cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden were under the direct authority of the emperor without any intermediate liege lords and thus were largely autonomous.

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15/11/0655

Battle of the Winwaed: Penda of Mercia is defeated by Oswiu of Northumbria.

The Battle of the Winwaed was fought on 15 November 655 between King Penda of Mercia and Oswiu of Bernicia, ending in the Mercians' defeat and Penda's death. According to Bede, the battle marked the effective demise of Anglo-Saxon paganism.

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